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PUP Leadership Debate – Is It a Debate In Earnest?
posted (January 22, 2016)
So, the PUP Leadership Debate is set for next week Thursday - or is it? John Briceno has emailed the organizers saying he has a previous commitment for that night. The organizers are hoping they can find a workaround - but the truth is with 9 days to go before the convention - the candidates are still scrambling around the country to try and meet close to three thousand delegates.

But, the organizers are undaunted - they're moving ahead with plans, confident that the platform they're offering is so publicly irresistible, that the leadership candidates will have to come around.

Today, they held a press briefing at Spoonaz Cafe where they outlined the proposal:...

Glenn Tillet
"As of yesterday all 3 participants had indicated that they would be present and they would participate. This morning the Hon. John Briceno said that he may have a schedule in conflict and he is giving it some consideration and we should know by the end of the day whether or not he may or may not withdraw. We are soliciting questions from the general public, from organizations. Mrs. Sandiford is in charge of that and these questions will be given advance to the candidates before their purview."

Jules Vasquez
"Now Glenn, you said that you want to make them comfortable, but as you know our job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and I have always seen media engagement as a sort of combat and I think that these people who want to lead anything - anything publicly should be subjected to the harshest sort of back and forth and the most rigorous public interrogation there can be. Why are you advocating something that seems more homely? Is it because the majority of the organizers are card carrying members from the PUP?"

Glenn Tillet
"I don't think politics as such or the political discourse have to continue to be a race to the bottom. It should not bring out the worse of us. I think the political discourse should enhance what should be an old profession. I should point out that the moderators for the debate will be selected by a process where the committee will put up list of 3 names. Each candidate is ask to put up a list of 3 names and out of that pool, the persons who have the unanimous approval of the committee and the candidates will be selected as the moderators. We are well aware that politics can be cruelious and siliceous and we intend to guard against that."

Jules Vasquez
"Why would you let these people who are in the business of generating psycho fancy? Why would you let them come to a consensus on whom the moderator should be?"

Glenn Tillet
"On behalf of the voting public, I humbly apologized for you calling them psycho fans. I would like to say that as a first effort, we do want cooperation. We want the candidates to be comfortable and we want the questions to be pertinent, to be pointed. We are not here trying to create controversy. The questions that they are going to deal with are questions that are coming from the public, from organizations. It is what people want to know."

Jose Coye, Organizer, PUP Debate
"The moderator is important, but only in the sense of actually asking a question that has already been given to them and they should be prepared and that one question given is the 3 of them will have the opportunity to answer."

Jules Vasquez
"It appears that what you are trying to create is a powder puff event. The candidates are given the questions in advanced. There aren't real interrogators as the moderators. Really what this looks like is a showcase for PUP profiling set up by professional PUPs."

Glenn Tillet
"That's a little extreme Jules. I dispute that. I disagree. I think that it is a showcase for 3 men who aspire to be the leaders of the People's United Party. This is no powder puff and I dare anyone who thinks it's a powder puff to face the Belizean public and answer the questions you know will arise."

As you heard questions will be sent in by the public. You can send yours to glenntillett@gmail.com - that's Tillett with two "L's" and two "T's". The organizing committee will review and compile the questions, which as you heard will then be sent to the candidates. Francis Fonseca was the only candidate who had a representative at today's press conference which we take to mean that his camp is committed to the debate.

As you saw in our footage, we had an image of Francis Fonseca and Cordel Hyde at today's house meeting - John Briceno didn't attend because he went to meet delegates in Toledo.

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